Penalty

 Cold night wind swept through his curly black hair, his fingers clutching the handles, were all numb, and the sound of wind whistling in his ears was drowned by the honking and rumble of traffic.

Glancing at his wristwatch for an umpteenth time, he increased his speed, weaving his way through the traffic, and pulling up on the footpaths occasionally for shortcuts to arrive in time.

He increased his speed at the full as he saw the signal turn yellow, to cross it before it went red, and narrowly whizzing past a car, he skidded to a halt at the edge line of the signal.

The car he had nearly bumped into, pulled up beside him, and a middle-aged man stepped out of it. He wouldn't have paid him much attention until he came up to him, and started yelling, "Don't you know how to ride a bike?", ''What's wrong sir?" asked Harris, startled, "Now, I'll tell you what's wrong, ha". The signal had turned green, and the cars began honking to let the space. "'Get to the side, I'll have a word with you", said the man and slid back in his car to park it by the side. "I'm surely gonna be late" Harris muttered to himself as he hauled his motorcycle to park it by the side.

"Now, you bumped into my brand new car", accused the man

"No sir, I narrowly missed it", protested Harris in his defense,

"Don't lie to me", snapped the man sharply.

Respecting his seniority, Harris stayed quiet. "And oh, I can see that you're a delivery boy, so that must be reported to your restaurant, that their delivery boys are totally insane, and unaware of the driving rules".

Harris felt a roar of fury inside him, but he didn't say anything except for a low, "Sorry".

"Now you're apologizing after blowing things up yourself, listen, young man, I've accepted your apologies, but I will report it to your restaurant, and see if they don't deduct it from your salary", "And yes, please tell me your name, so that they won't be confused with some other delivery boy".

"Harris Majeed", he muttered, "Right, I'll remember", and with these words, he stormed back in his car, and sped off.

Harris too kicked up his motorcycle, and without sparing another second, he too sped off for his destination.

He reached the house, fifteen minutes late. Hesitating, he rang the doorbell, and immediately, a young woman answered, delivering a speech, she thought was obligatory for him to hear, because he had been late for delivering her meal.

He rode all the way back to the restaurant, this time extra carefully.

He reached there, and parking his motorcycle, pushed open the door, ready to face the manager.

"The manager wants you", the counter clerk whispered in his ear, as he handed him the bill, "I know", he sighed.

"What a dreadful day", he thought on his way to the manager's office.

He had delivered a total of four deliveries that day, all of which had been late, after his last one, the manager had strictly said that any more late deliveries, and no month's salary, and yet again, there had been another late delivery. With these bitter thoughts racing in his mind, he pushed open the glass door and stepped into the manager's office.

"Alright, that's it, you've been late too often", the manager's stern voice pierced between his thoughts.

"Sorry sir'', muttered Harris,

"Well you should be, but I'm afraid, this five-lettered word won't suspend your punishment, and yeah, I also received another complaint, I'm sure I don't want to repeat it?"

Harris wanted to shout out the reality on the manager's face, but he knew that he won't listen to him either, just like that toxic man.

"Well, that ought to be adjusted in your next month's salary, since we haven't got any space in this month's, now off you go", and Harris left the office with a heavy heart, and tears filled in his eyes, as he stormed out of the restaurant, into the world full of people who couldn't resist their food delivery being a few minutes late, and people who found great pleasure in holding innocent people accused for the damage they hadn't committed to their brand new car.